Correlation between traffic flows and noise reduction in HUSH project strategic actions

H.U.S.H. “Harmonization of Urban Noise reduction Strategies for Homogeneous action plans” is a project co-funded by European Community’s Life+ Program and it has the general goal to contribute to the harmonization of the national and European legislations, regarding the noise management tools, introduced by the END Directive 49/2002, starting from the realization of interventions in two areas of the city of Florence, identified by the Noise Abatement Plan and the Strategic Action Plan as critical areas, considered as pilot cases. Concerning the largest area considered, Peretola-Brozzi, characterized by the presence of many and different noise sources (air, rail and road transport), the attention has been focused on the critical situation analysis resulting from vehicular traffic scenarios. Tools regarding design and traffic management have been used for analysis and evaluation, as well as a computational model for traffic management (Traffic Management Model TMM) validated with measured data, in order to analyze the current situation and to provide estimates on projected changes, in terms of traffic flows. The results of simulations carried out on traffic flows, related to the different scenarios considered, have been used as input data for the acoustic model, leading to the definition of relationships existing between changing traffic flows and the reducing environmental noise.